


slow waltz on a razor’s edge

by curiouslyfic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Double Penetration, Multi, comm: hp_3forfun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:12:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The most important things are the hardest to say…because words diminish them.” ~ Stephen King</p>
            </blockquote>





	slow waltz on a razor’s edge

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: “The night you walked into our lives…we couldn’t have asked for anything else.”

Always some sort of cost to love, isn’t there? Duty, obligation, _something_. Harry knows because he’s pitched himself headlong into hell for it, still can’t escape the scars, and in time, he comes to understand that’s indicative.

Just how the world works.

Fuck that, Harry’s had enough of it.

::

Draco thinks sometimes he should _say_ the thing, get it over and done with before this slips away. It’s not _hard_ , really, just words, but he can’t get them off his tongue for trying.

Thing is, he’s had it chain him, hasn’t he, had it lock him down, wrap him up in sheer bloody misery for _years_ and he can’t say he’s all that eager for another round.

Too obvious by far, what he’ll do for family, and it’s enough to drown the words out again, smother them in memory.

::

Charlie’s trying hard to understand, because he _knows_ how they both feel about him, hears it in every careful touch, every bloody thing they do here, and on some level, he’s still waiting for the actual words. Not that he needs a big show of romance or anything, he’s not expecting _that_ , but surely the words wouldn’t _kill_ them.

He says it all the time, after all, and isn’t he still breathing?

::

Harry’s not _avoiding_ love, that’s just nonsense. Not looking for it, maybe, not crossing his fingers or anything, but that’s different. Harry doesn’t have to look for anything these days, Harry has what he needs.

Harry’s fucking _happy_.

No need to put a name to anything.

::

Draco thinks maybe he should do something about Charlie, who’s starting to look at him with bemusement and who’s still so good about everything, all of Draco’s shit. Charlie, who tastes like Quidditch and potions when Draco catches him after work, sun and sweat and smoke when Draco sucks gently at his pulse, who still grins and laughs and groans when Draco bumps him against a convenient wall and Vanishes his robes with a murmur.

Charlie, who does definitely want the words at some point.

Draco’s working on that.

::

Charlie thinks maybe they’re getting close sometimes, thinks he can see the words trapped behind hungry kisses, restless mouths, hands fluttering unsure around his shoulders before they settle. There’s _something_ in how Harry lays back for him, how Draco slides to his knees like that’s not all sorts of wretched memories, and Charlie _knows_ it’s important. Harry’s reckless and brittle and distanced from the world, determined to disconnect himself from basically everyone, and it means something that he lets them both in.

Sometimes, when Charlie’s got Harry above him, Draco tight against Harry’s back, rubbing his hands over Harry’s chest and mouthing over Charlie’s scuffed knuckles, both of them wedged into Harry’s arse and shagging him senseless, _sometimes_ Charlie thinks maybe the words are going to out themselves, just tumble thoughtlessly out of either one of them.

He knows it’s ridiculous, there’s no sense in expecting them to change and he certainly doesn’t _need_ them to, he actually loves them both just as they are, steady-eyed and cautious, wary for the whole rest of the world.

Just, Charlie’s grown up around people who _don’t_ have a hard time of this and he’s used to easy affection, people saying it all the time.  
He’s not at all sure how he’s found himself with the two most reticent men in England but he wouldn’t change them for the world.

::

It’s _not_ love, is the thing, because Harry doesn’t have that in him anymore, he’s sure he’s burnt himself out on it, and what’s left in the mess is a desperate need to _hold on_ , keep what he has as close as he can with obliging anybody for anything. He likes knowing they aren’t, that Charlie lets Harry pin him to the bed and fuck him hard because Charlie _likes_ it, taking whatever Harry does to him, every little thing Harry feels like doing. Likes knowing, too, that when he pushes, Draco pushes back, doesn’t give an inch unless he wants to, and there’s nothing in the world quite like knowing how messed up he is and seeing proof they want him around anyway.

Harry _knows_ he’s messed up, thanks. He’s already had that uncomfortable chat with Dumbledore’s portrait. Thing is, when they’d made him a weapon, armed him up in the name of _love_ and sent him off to fucking die for it, they really should have expected this.

Not fair at all, Draco and Charlie paying the price.

::

Draco _knows_ , is the thing. How close Harry is to breaking, how close Charlie is to leaving, how very dysfunctional they’ve made something simple. He knows Charlie’s too patient for his own good, that Harry’s too noble for his own sanity, that they’re all of them bleeding themselves out over something easily corrected.

Just, he needs the fucking _words_ , is all, and that’s harder than it should be.

No particular night, he finds them.

::

Charlie’s half-gone already, shagged out for the night, sticky and stretched and sore, stuck in Draco’s wet spot with the taste of Harry on his tongue, when he feels the careful touch on his face, turns to kiss the thumb crooked by his mouth. Charlie blinks himself awake, peers up into Draco’s bittersweet watch.

“We’re fucking horrible on you,” Draco murmurs. “I can’t think why you stay.” Charlie lifts his brows. “Only, I can’t think how I’d...”

Charlie means to tug Draco down, kiss that fucking _sorrow_ gone, only Harry flinches. “ _We_ ’d,” Harry corrects. “How _we_ ’d get on without you.”

If that’s not where Draco’d planned to take this, it must be close enough.

“Honestly, Charlie. That night you walked into our lives was…we couldn’t have asked for anything else.”

And maybe those aren’t quite the words Charlie’s been led to expect the whole of his life but honestly? He thinks they’re _better_.

~f~ 


End file.
